


Out of Commission

by BunniesofDoom



Series: Change of Plans [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Badass Blake Belladonna, F/F, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Volume 7 (RWBY), Spoilers: Volume 8 (RWBY), Volume 8 (RWBY), blake spills the tea, healthy communication is my kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28972299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunniesofDoom/pseuds/BunniesofDoom
Summary: The stakes are higher than ever, and our heroes need someone to guide them. But with Ruby out of commission, who will they turn to?
Relationships: Blake Belladonna & Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie, Ruby Rose & Yang Xiao Long
Series: Change of Plans [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125074
Kudos: 66





	Out of Commission

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silverrstardust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverrstardust/gifts).



> This was written for an idea by the lovely stardoesnthaveaname , who is an excellent writer whose work you should definitely check out. I wrote this instead of sleeping last night, so hopefully it turned out okay. This is set at the end of Volume 7/beginning of volume 8. Enjoy!

Saying that today has been a long day would be a massive understatement.

Ruby had been ready to drop hours ago, after they had finished clearing the Grimm from the streets of Mantle—and that was before their encounter with Salem and their fight with the Ace Ops—and their frantic rush to get to the Winter Maiden before Cinder could. She leans back against the side of the airship with a sigh. The cold metal feels good against her pounding head, which is a relief. Her head hasn't felt right since they ran into the weird jellyfish-looking Grimm that Salem had used to communicate with them. Using her silver eyes on Cinder hadn't helped.

Every muscle in Ruby's body is screaming at her to lay down and rest for a while, but there's no time for that. They're surrounded by enemies on all sides, and both Atlas and Mantle are currently in danger of destruction by Salem and her army of Grimm. Ruby needs to come up with a plan, devise some way to fix things. She's the leader. Everyone is depending on her to come up with a solution.

But she's so tired, and the siren song of sleep is becoming harder to resist by the minute. Surely it couldn't hurt to just shut her eyes for a few minutes, rest her brain for a little bit. She can wake up refreshed and ready to do her job. Yeah.

Remember, this is just for a few minutes, she reminds herself as she lets her eyes fall shut. Just a few minutes . . .

Sleep washes over her like a tidal wave, dragging her under effortlessly.

The airship is remarkably quiet for how many people it has crammed inside it. Well, they're all exhausted and a bit shell-shocked from the events of the evening, Blake muses. Herself included.

Across from her, Ruby has dozed off, head tipped back against the wall and snoring softly. Their leader looks younger when she's asleep, somehow even more innocent, and Blake smiles fondly. Ruby has the right idea; might as well catch up on some sleep while they can.

They sit in silence for a few more minutes, before Jaune finally speaks up. "We need to come up with a plan."

"What do you mean?" Nora replies, frowning. She sounds unusually subdued.

"Well, we managed to get away from General Ironwood, which is good, but we still have no idea what we should do next," Jaune points out.

To everyone's surprise, Ren is the next one to pipe up. "General Ironwood has declared us fugitives, Qrow and Oscar are missing, and Atlas has stopped evacuating Mantle, which is being overrun by Grimm and where the heating is out." He counts the problems off on his fingers sarcastically as he talks. "Am I missing anything? Oh, yeah, and we lost the lamp, and Salem is right on Atlas' doorstep! We need an actual plan. We can't just keep fumbling around, hoping we stumble onto a solution."

Nora wilts further at Ren's caustic tone. Blake doesn't think she's ever heard him say so much at once. She glances around at the others, hoping that someone will have a suggestion or will say something to try to lift their spirits. She would give it a try, but Ruby has always been better at this sort of thing than she is.

Yang sighs heavily, pushing herself to her feet. "Ren is right. We need a plan." Her partner sounds agitated, and Blake can't help but frown in concern. Things might not be looking great right now, but they need to try to stay focused and keep a level head. Otherwise, they'll just end up fighting among themselves.

She makes a mental note to talk to her partner in private later, when they get a chance. Whenever that might be. She's surprised that Ruby is still asleep, with all of them talking so loudly. She must be really tired.

"What do you think we should do, Ruby?" Jaune asks. He frowns when he gets no response. "Ruby?"

"Now's really not the time to be taking a nap, Ruby," Yang scolds her sister, sighing again. "C'mon, wake up," she says, shaking her shoulders roughly.

Ruby doesn't respond.

"Ruby, quit messing around." Yang is sounding impatient now, and angry. She shakes her sister harder. "This isn't really the time for jokes."

"Yang, stop!" Weiss shouts, grabbing her wrist. "That's enough." Yang looks taken aback. Blake guesses she didn't realize how rough she was being.

"She's still asleep," Penny notes, peering at Ruby's sleeping face. "Is Ruby normally a heavy sleeper?"

"No, she's not," Yang replies, frowning. "This is weird."

"I don't think that Ruby is ignoring us," Blake says. "I think something might be wrong."

"Do you think it has something to do with her silver eyes?" Penny asks.

Weiss frowns thoughtfully. "Maybe. In that case, we should ask Maria later, when she's not driving the airship."

"Yeah, sure, that's fine, but it doesn't exactly help us now," Yang grumbles. "We still need to come up with a plan. Got to get us out of the mess that Ruby got us into."

"Seriously?" Blake can feel her eyebrows disappearing under her hair in her shock. "Please tell me how exactly this is Ruby's fault. I'm waiting."

"Well," Yang begins, looking a bit less confident now that Blake is looking at her expectantly. "If she hadn't insisted on lying to Ironwood, maybe he would have trusted us more, and we still would have been able to convince him to work with us."

"You know, you could say the same thing about you and me," Blake points out. "Since we went behind his back to tell Robyn about Amity Arena. But I don't see you jumping at the chance to take the blame." She shrugs, looking pointedly at Yang.

Her partner looks away, swallowing hard. "Blake, I—look, I'm sorry, ok? I'm just tired."

"You should be sorry. We're all tired," Blake replies flatly. "But if you think I'm just going to sit here and stay quiet while you try to blame our leader for everything, then I guess you don't know me at all." Yang flinches back slightly as Blake's voice hardens. In all the time they've been partners, Blake has never used such a harsh tone with her girlfriend before. "Ruby has been doing her best to figure things out, and if you ask me, she's been doing an excellent job, especially given how crazy things have been lately. I don't think any of us want to be in her shoes, and I don't think any of us would have done half as well if we were the ones calling the shots." She sighs. "So, don't you dare try to pin this on Ruby. If you want to blame someone, blame Ironwood. Blame Salem. But in the long run, blame isn't going to get us anywhere. Helping the people of Atlas and Mantle and stopping Salem will."

The airship is quiet following her impromptu speech; apparently Blake managed to stun everyone into silence. Finally, Ren breaks the awkward quiet that has fallen over them. "Say what you want about Ironwood, but at least he has a plan."

Blake whirls around and fixes him with an unimpressed look. The usually stoic boy winces. "Seriously? Ironwood's 'plan' is to abandon most of the people who are depending on him in the hopes that he can escape his problems by running away? Does that sound like a good 'plan' to you?"

Ren opens and closes his mouth several times, looking chagrined. "I guess not," he finally admits. "But if you don't want to go along with his idea, do you at least have a plan of your own?"

"Not yet, but I can come up with one," Blake replies, her voice poisonously sweet. Ren flinches. She turns to Jaune. "Qrow and Oscar are both missing. Have we gotten a signal from either of their scrolls?"

"Not from Qrow, but Oscar's just came back online," Jaune replies, looking relieved as he fiddles with his scroll. "The signal is faint, but we should still be able to track him down."

"Great. Why don't you go tell Maria the plan, and then ask her to find somewhere to hole up afterwards so we can take some time to figure out our next move?"

Jaune nods, standing up and heading for the cockpit. Blake sighs for what feels like the billionth time today. Being in charge sucks. She doesn't know how Ruby does it all the time.

Ruby, for her part, slumbers on, sprawled over Penny and Weiss' laps. Blake hopes that she'll be okay.

After they pick up Oscar, who refuses to tell them what happened to him or how he ended up down in Solitas, they head to Dr. Polendina's clinic down in Mantle. Blake and Weiss pull Maria aside to take a look at Ruby.

"Hmm," she grunts, peering impassively at the unconscious girl. "And you said she used her powers earlier?"

"Yes." Weiss nods jerkily. "When we ran into Cinder, Ruby used her eyes on her."

"Hmmm," Maria mutters again, frowning. "That is interesting. It's probably a side effect of the silver eyes, then. Has something like this happened before?"

"I guess so," Weiss says softly. "After she awakened her powers at the fall of Beacon, she was in a coma for a few weeks. And after she used them at Haven and in Argus, she did sleep for a while."

"Then it sounds like we'll just have to keep an eye on her and hope that she wakes up soon." Maria sighs. "Hopefully, she's not out of commission for long."

Blake and Weiss exchange a glance. That's exactly what they're afraid of.

They decide to split up.

Blake isn't happy about it, but she isn't terribly surprised. They're all exhausted, and tensions are running high. Blake finds herself feeling envious of Ruby and her extended nap.

Penny, Weiss, Blake, Nora, and Yang will go to one of Atlas' bases and try to retrieve the code needed for Amity Arena to launch.

Jaune, Oscar, and Ren will stay in Mantle and try to fend off the Grimm.

And Maria and Pietro will head to the communications tower and ready it for takeoff.

"Wait, what about Ruby?" Yang asks quietly. She's been fairly subdued since she and Blake had argued earlier, and she keeps shooting her partner apologetic looks. She'd volunteered to infiltrate the Atlas base practically as soon as Blake had., clearly not wanting to be separated while things are still so tense between them. It's sweet, but Blake can tell that it's quickly going to become tiresome. "We can't exactly take her with us to Atlas or carry her around while fighting Grimm."

"Don't worry, Pietro and I will take your sister with us to Amity and keep an eye on her there," Maria assures her. "She'll be safe with us." She gives them an unimpressed look. "Now, you girls better get going. We don't exactly have time to just stand around."

As they say their goodbyes and close the doors of the clinic behind them, Blake wonders when the next time they'll all be together again. Hopefully, it's soon. They're always stronger when they work together. With one last glance behind her, Blake steps out into the swirling snow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please comment and leave kudos if you liked it.
> 
> Also thank you to the people who consistently leave kudos on my works. Every time I seem your usernames it makes me smile. I mostly write to cope with anxiety, and I'm always astonished when people like my work. Thanks again.
> 
> I promise I'm not trying to bash anyone here, I'm just trying to give them the serious attitude adjustments they need before they get themselves into trouble.
> 
> Nobody:
> 
> Me: hey, what if I start writing another AU?
> 
> Just a reminder that I do take requests for fics, so if there's an idea that you'd like to see me write, feel free to message me and if I like it, I might end up writing something for it.


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